What does the word environment mean to you? (12/14/2021)

What comes to mind when you hear the word environment? That was a question I read in a periodical I get called Yes! Yes! calls itself “Journalism for People Building a Better World.” It is a very provocative and informative magazine, and I enjoy it. The question what the word environment means to you was partially answered in the magazine, and I thought it was worth spending some time on here in my blog, since I often write about the environment, environmental protection, and environmental justice.

The Oxford Dictionary defines environment in two ways:

1. The surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates.
2. The natural world, as a whole or in a particular geographical area, especially as affected by human activity.

From a biological viewpoint, some define environment as follows:

1. The uninhabitable portion of the environment
2. Uninhabited part, and
3. Inhabited part of the environment

Those darn biologists again! They know how to ruin a good thing and make something uninhabitable. But I guess they (we) are correct, places like the lava flow in Tenerife or Iceland are still part of the environment and are pretty darn uninhabitable. It just makes it sounds so clinical.

I guess, I could just copy what is written in the article since I assume that not many of you read the magazine, but that would be plagiarism, now wouldn’t it? Still, to paraphrase what Breanna Draxler wrote in her article, she writes it should not (only) be the charismatic things around us like the National Parks, the majestic peaks, and the beautiful forest. However, it should also the mundane including the soil, our air, things around our home, our workplace, and schools. We should understand how we are interconnected with each other, with the planet and everything living on it. Wow that is a Unitarian principle if I have ever heard of one.

The article then goes into environmental justice and makes the argument that wherever the environment is under assault, the local inhabitants will be under assault as well. It always seems that these inhabitants will mostly be minorities, especially women and children.

Why is it that when I start writing, things go where I did not intent it to go? This time I only read the introduction to Ms. Draxler’s article, and I thought it would make a great post: wondering what the word environment means to me. So, let’s see if I can bring it back to there. What does it all mean to me? As someone who is acutely aware of my surroundings, I like to “forest bathe”, meditate, observe and study nature, my environment is all around me, wherever I am and go. As I mentioned before, winter walks are my way of examining the canopy of trees in search of a design for the perfect bonsai. So yes, I consider myself acutely aware of my environment.

At the same time, I recognize the larger environment and often write about global warming. Right now, I am upset that our republican governor elect is either bowing to his own or to the conservative belief or bias and wants to dial back regulations that fight global warming and sea-level rise. The only thing I can think is “here we go again”. Let’s fight whatever progress we have made for future generations for short-term gain, and who really gives a damn how our kids and grandkids will suffer? Our generation’s legacy be damned!

To me environment includes all that and the people around me, my family and friends, you all who read my blog posts, my students, neighbors, foes, even my enemies, or shall I call them the folks I do not really like that much or get along with. That part of the environment is important. I once wrote a post on the difference between being alone and being lonely. As an introvert, I like being alone at times but being lonely without community or folks in my environment is not good.

In conclusion then, for me, the word environment encompasses everything, the whole, the web of our and my existence, as well the minutia everything and everybody around me. I need to cherish it and them, respect them, love them, take care of them; because they are all I have and all I can leave as legacy for future generations. They (you) contribute to who I am.

This photograph symbolizes what I am trying to tell you all here.  I walk by this scene probably at least once a day, if not more.  The perfect embrace of two different tree species: a loblolly pine and a maple.  If they can do it, humankind can do it, and fight for the environment on all different scales.

 

The cheapo multi-disciplinarian naturalist (3/18/2019)

I often explain in my workshops that biologists would make the great economists. Or, maybe better that economy and biology are actually very closely related fields. On the first hand, you may think I am crazy, but that will be one of the arguments I will try to make in today’s post. Today’s post is also about the beauty of being multidisciplinary. I do not strictly believe that we all belong in our silos, but that our professions and specializations can benefit a lot from cross fertilization and interaction. For example, in my sermon last year, I argued that biology, or my observations of nature, reveal order, mathematics and rhythm. Nature or biology, I argued also has parsimony, she really has so much more to offer or to teach us than just biology.

Nature offers us:

• Food
• Shelter
• Fiber
• Peace of mind (or sanity)
• Health
• Art
• Wonder
• Spirituality
• And many more benefits

We are part of nature. We come from it and have evolved from it, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. Some may think we have outgrown it, but we all still have that animalistic (or natural) instinct in us, from birth, until we we die. We are created true the animalistic (instinctive or some call it loving) behavior of our parents and when we die, we again become part of nature; we even refer to it in our ceremonies: “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

But there is so much more. The natural world has offered us some magnificent art; it started in the old cave paintings, and then just think of the greats like the photographer Ansel Adams, writers like Thoreau, painters likes Monet, and I am just scratching the surface. Nature offers sanity to the forest bathers, the meditators, those folks who retreat to nature. They all offer nature something in return, their admiration, love and desire to preserve and protect it.

About once a month or so I see that picture on Facebook that offers you $3,000,000 or some crazy price to go live somewhere in nature without a phone and internet for 3 months or some period. I wish it was a true offer, I would jump at it, and disappear for 3 months, or even longer, a half year?

This photograph captures the beauty of nature.  We went for a walk in the woods behind our home and after some bushwhacking we found this little creek meandering through the woods.  Who could not just live here for 3 months (were it not for the bugs, but I think I would even be able to survive them with the proper protection).

Back to what I want to write about today! In my classes I talk about parsimony and how parsimonious nature is. Let’s look at the word parsimonious. It has become one of my favorite words and it means: “the quality of being careful in spending.” You may also call it stingy, miserly, cheap, frugal, tight, or penny-pinching. You get the idea. Not that I live that way, but nature does not waste a thing (unlike most of us humans). If you don’t live as efficiently in nature as possible you have less reserves as your neighbor, something or somebody will outsmart you, out-compete you, hunt you down and have you for dinner. It is a dog-eat-dog world out there and if you don’t do it as efficient as possible you are literally toast or at least the stuff they put on toast!

Nature is very supply and demand oriented as part of this parsimony. If you can do the same thing as your neighbor and use less of the resources available to you, you can literally do more with what is available and out-compete those guys. It is survival of the fittest, of the most efficient, or the strongest. This is the most classic Darwinian concept, but also classic economic model you can find: Supply and Demand.

The German scientist/chemist Justus von Liebig (1803-1873), also known as the father of the chemical fertilizer, developed the “Law of the Minimum.” He figured out that plants (and in his case crops) always had one limiting factor. Once you alleviate that limiting factor, say through fertilization, something else will become limiting (another element or chemical in the soil or something else like water or light). By the way, von Liebig also invented the bouillon block that we use in soup. He was supposed to be a great chemist, philosopher and teacher.

It was around that time that biology really took off, we had Darwin who really figured out this thing called evolution; then we had Mendel who figured out genetics. It must have been an exciting time to live and learn. But both Darwin and Mendel illustrated that there are other forces in play than just biology, or maybe that biology involves economics, mathematics and statistics, just to name a few. Von Liebig had showed it involved chemistry. I always tell folks that I probably came the closest to a religious experience when I studied cell biology and learned what all goes on at the cellular level, or maybe what can go wrong on a cellular level. To think we have all these people and other living organisms running around on this earth, each of which have million of cells, some of which have hundreds of processes going on inside those minute cells, was a religious experience to me. It was absolutely amazing and kind of scary to think that if one of those processes does not work that cell could potentially become a cancer cell. But then I learned we have little organs in the cell that can repair these mishaps and that we even have suicide organelles (or capsules) in our cells and if it really goes wrong, the cells can commit suicide (an interesting concept in itself). This works most of the time, but if not, we grow older and those cells may mutate and could eventually develop cancer. It is all amazingly complicated and it all works; most of the time. But no, I never became overly religious, but I did gain a heck of a lot of respect and love for biology and I retained my spirituality.

As you can see, biology can involve a lot of disciplines, ranging from spirituality to mathematics, to economics to actually life science. I do think multidisciplinary thinking is extremely important. We lose sight of the whole picture by being overly specialized. While writing this post I was going through my old posts knowing that I wrote about using old experiences in development of my classes. It was amazing when I reread some of my posts. There are a lot of reoccurring themes here, and I have always wondered if I label too much. However, this shows my multidisciplinary interests, my scattered brain and my love for knowledge (or the unknown). For example, I am currently studying about the construction of embankments and how to compact soil. This is something fairly new to me, I have learned a little bit about it when thinking about the rooting of plants, but never really about building dams. It is fun, and it will be something new to think about and to teach. Life is never boring this way, and all I can say is: go out there yourself, put yourself out there and don’t be afraid to learn something new, something you had absolutely no idea about; become an multidisciplinarian, we need more of them.

The Swiss-Army person (2/6/2019)

I often explain in my classes that biologists would make the great economists. Or, maybe better that economy and biology are very closely related fields. On the first hand, you may think that I am crazy, but I'll try to make an argument for it today. 

I do not strictly believe that we all belong in our silos, but that our professions and specializations can benefit a lot from cross fertilization and interaction. In my sermon, I argued that biology, or my observations of nature, reveal order, mathematics and rhythm. Nature or biology really has so much more to offer or to teach us.

Nature offers something to the artists; just think of the greats like the photographer Ansel Adams, writers like Thoreau, painters likes Monet, and I am just scratching the surface. It offers sanity to the forest bathers, the meditators, those folks who retreat to nature. They all offer nature something in return. Without the interaction there would be no preservation of the natural world. 

About once a month do I see that picture on Facebook that offers you $3,000,000 or some crazy price to go live somewhere in nature without a phone and internet for 3 months or some period. I wish it was a true offer, I would jump at it, and disappear for 3 months, a half year.

But back to what I want to write about today. In my classes I talk about parsimony and how parsimonious nature is. Let’s look at the word parsimonious. It has become one of my favorite words and it means: “the quality of being careful in spending.” You may also call it stingy, miserly, cheap, frugal, tight, or penny-pinching. You get the idea. Not that I live that way, but nature does not waste a thing (unlike most of us humans). If you don’t live as efficiently in nature as possible something or somebody will outsmart you, out-compete you, hunt you down and have you for dinner. It is a dog-eat-dog world out there and if you don’t do it all as efficient as possible you are literally toast!

Nature is very supply and demand oriented as part of this parsimony. If you can do the same thing as your neighbor and use less of the resources available to you, you can literally do more with what is available and out-compete those guys. It is survival of the fittest, of the most efficient, or the strongest. This is the most classic Darwinian concept, but also classic economic model you can find: Supply and Demand.

Then there was the German scientist/chemist Justus von Liebig (1803-1873). Von Liebig also known as the father of the chemical fertilizer developed the “Law of the Minimum.” He figured out that plants (and in his case crops) always had one limiting factor. Once you alleviate that limiting factor, say through fertilization, something else will become limiting (another element or chemical in the soil or something else like water or light). By the way, von Liebig also invented the bouillon block that we use in soup. He was supposed to be a great chemist, philosopher and teacher.

It was around that time that biology really took off, we had Darwin who really figured out this thing called evolution; then we had Mendel who figured out genetics. It must have been an exciting time to live and learn. But both Darwin and Mendel illustrated that there are other forces in play than just biology, or maybe that biology involves economics, mathematics and statistics, just to name a few. Von Liebig had showed it involved chemistry. 

I always tell folks that I probably came the closest to a religious experience when I studied cell biology and learned what all goes on at the cellular level, or maybe what can go wrong on a cellular level. To think we have all these people and other living organisms running around on this earth, was a religious experience to me. It was absolutely amazing and kind of scary. But then I learned we have suicide organelles (or capsules) in our cells and if there is anything wrong, the cells can commit suicide (an interesting concept in itself). This works most of the time, but if not, we grow older and those cells may mutate and could develop cancer. It is all amazingly complicated and it all works; most of the time. But no, I never became overly religious, but I did gain a heck of a lot of respect and love for biology and I retained my spirituality.

Your's truly sitting behind his desk at home, trying to do some work.  It's a little cramped and I desperately need to clean it up ... maybe this weekend. (photo courtesy of my wife)

As you can see, biology can involve a lot of disciplines, ranging from spirituality to mathematics, to economics to actually life science. I do think multidisciplinary thinking is extremely important. We lose sight of the big picture by being overly specialized. While writing this post I was going through my old posts knowing that I wrote about using past experiences in development of my classes. It was amazing when I reread some of my posts. There are a lot of reoccurring themes here, and I have always wondered if I label too much. However, this shows my multidisciplinary interests, my scattered brain and my love for knowledge (or the unknown). For example, I am currently studying about the construction of embankments and how to compact soil. This is something fairly new to me, I have learned a little bit about it when thinking about the rooting of plants, but never really about building dams. It is fun, and it will be something new to think about and to teach. Life is never boring this way, and all I can say is: go out there yourself, put yourself out there and don’t be afraid to learn something new, something you had absolutely no idea about; become a multidisciplinary persons, we need more of them.  It does not have to be biology, that is just me, just do not stop learning and experiencing.